19 FEBRUARY 1983, Page 28

Television

Enduring

Richard Ingrams

Tonathan Stedall, producer of Time with J Beijeman (BBC2) a seven-part series which began on Sunday, has discovered what some of us have known all along, namely that Old is Beautiful. A year or so ago he made a series with Malcolm Mug- geridge in which he looked back at the television films he had made over the years. On the whole this was a successful experi- ment mainly because the old films were so good. Mr Stedall has now done the same thing with John Betjeman, a man like Mug- geridge who has used television in an in- spired way to throw a bit of light on everything. Unlike Muggeridge who travell- ed to India and America, Betjeman never went much further than his own back yard. His best and most famous film was Metroland, which proved that you don't have to go far to find extraordinary sights — 'For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen, Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.' Per- sonally I would be happy just watching these old films of Betjeman's again in an uncut form, in the same way, for example, that some of John Read's excellent films about artists are now being shown on the BBC. Stedall, however, has cut them up in- to snippets and interspersed them with bits of contemporary chat. But Betjeman is at

his best talking, like a teacher, straight into the camera and is not good at phony telly conversations. Stedall himself assumed the role of a matron in an old folks home hovering over Sir John, intent on jollying him along with the help of visitors like John Osborne. These bits made a sad contrast with the inspired vitality of the old films.

Mavis Nicholson is one of the very few good interviewers working on television. She has a natural, unaffected, humorous style and a welcome knack of asking the unexpected question. What an indictment of the television system that such an unusual character as Mavis should now be reduced to talking to teenagers about their sex lives on Channel 4! The programme is called Predicaments and is based on the misconception, widespread in television, that common human experiences like hav- ing a baby, going to bed with a member of the opposite sex or looking after your grandmother are all in some way tremen- dous 'problems' which can be made into heavy television discussions. I winced when Mavis began to ask her chosen teenagers to describe their first sex experience, with a good deal of giggling and embarrassment all round. Surely, I thought, there are more interesting and constructive things for her to be doing. If Channel 4 insists, then it should be left to the likes of Claire Rayner to do the dirty jobs. Mavis is cut out for higher things — though, personally, I think the public and especially the young are ab- solutely bored rigid by the media people's preoccupation with sex and would welcome at least a five-year ban on any mention of the subject.

Even more unpleasant than Predicaments was Channel 4's new series Stand Your Ground which aims to teach women self- defence. This starts off from the premise that more and more women are being at- tacked in the streets. Perfectly true. How- ever it is ironical but not surprising that the feminist movement, which is allowed to make so much boring propaganda on Channel 4, rejects the two most obvious solutions (1) to call for more effective polic- ing (police are men, or, even worse, pigs) (2) to encourage women to have boyfriends or husbands to accompany them at night. The idea that women should be dependent on men, or vice versa, is an anathema in these circles. Ms Kaleghl Quinn, who presides over Stand Your Ground, is a rather butch American lady who teaches classes of women not so much the art of self-defence, but to be aggressive and pushy and to stamp out all their feminine in- stincts. The logic of this is that they will end up as muggers themselves.